9th Battalion, Australian Infantry
John Daniel Manners Scales was born on 7 June 1881, at West Ham, London and was the son of George G R.Manners (born 1852) and Sarah J Scales; he was the third eldest of seven children.
On 5 September 1907 he married Edith Wood, at St Peter’s Church, Grimsby where he used the name John Daniel Scales-Manners.
They had three children, Jack (born 4 September 1908), Mary (born 1910) and Clement H (born in the second quarter of 1912). By 1911 they were living in Great Yarmouth.
Scales was a ship’s engineer by trade and in October 1911 he travelled to Queensland, Australia, to take up a position as an engineer on a tug boat, based at Rockhampton.
According to Edith, their relationship had been harmonious when he left (she must have been pregnant with their third child) but it transpired that in his job application he had stated himself to be ‘unmarried’.
On board a liner called Perthshire bound for Australia, which arrived at Brisbane on 16 December 1911) he allegedly met 23 year old Kathleen Daly who was travelling to take up a post on the domestic staff of a Roman Catholic Convent, at Southport, on Queensland’s Gold Coast.*
(* An examination of the passenger list for the Perthshire indicates the presence of Kathleen Daly but there is no mention of anyone called Scales, Manners or Scales-Manners etc.)
It would appear that Scales either travelled under an assumed name or that his tale regarding meeting Daly on board was untrue and that they met up in Australia.)
Scales sent a letter home to his wife, shortly after arrival but after that she heard nothing further so becoming anxious, Edith took steps to try to locate him and would appear to have either engaged the services of a detective agency, or initiated enquiries involving the local police.
As a result of these enquiries she discovered that her husband had entered into bigamous marriage with Kathleen Daly.
Having some explaining to do, Jack, as he appears to have been known, wrote a long letter to Edith on 21 April 1913 which contained details of a bizarre set of circumstances, as to how he came to be married illegally.
According to Jack, he and Kathleen had become well acquainted on the voyage to Australia as mentioned above and maintained contact following their arrival. Kathleen became unhappy at her workplace and complained of being ill-treated.
Jack arranged to visit her one weekend but before they met up he went for a few drinks at a local bar and this turned into a day long session. On 14 December 1912, he arrived at the convent drunk and declared that he was taking Kathleen away. The priest at the convent refused to allow this unless the couple agreed to be married – Kathleen being a Roman Catholic!
Drunk, claiming not to know the laws of the country and anxious not to miss his train back to Brisbane (as he had work the next day), Jack agreed to the marriage. The priest performed the ceremony at 6pm and they were on the train for Brisbane twenty minutes later!
Jack had declared his name to be ‘Jack Daniel Manners’ and that he was a widower.
In his letter to Edith, he expressed remorse for his action and his wish for her and the children to join him before too long. He stated that he was currently labouring but was due to work the season in the sugar cane fields before returning to his job on the tug boats.
He stated that with the money earned in the cane fields he would fund Edith’s and children’s passage to come out for the family to be re-united and have a fresh start. He undertook to do this inside the next three months or return to England.
This was the last Edith heard from him and in due course she instigated divorce proceedings but despite exhaustive enquiries, this time he could not be traced.
Assuming him dead, she married a John William Fox on 9 September 1916 and they lived at Brixton in London, unaware that she too had committed bigamy!
According to Kathleen she left Jack as soon as she was aware that he had a wife in England but he still came to visit – and apparently a close relationship continued.
On 16 August 1915 Jack (now aged 34) enlisted in the Australian Army at Brisbane and began training for service overseas with the Australian Imperial Force.
He embarked from Sydney on board the troopship Ayrshire on 1 September 1915 which was bound for Alexandria, Egypt, disembarking on 8 January 1916.
On the following day, at Tel-el-Kebir, he joined up with the 9th (Queensland) Battalion, part of 3rd Australian Brigade, 1st Australian Division.
He had enlisted as a ‘single man’ under the name of John Manners Scales and gave as his next of kin the name and address of his mother, who lived in Cleethorpes in Lincolnshire.
However, she had died a year or so prior to his leaving for Australia.
On 27 March 1916 he sailed with the Troopship Saxonia from Alexandria bound for Marseilles and that arrived on 3 April 1916.
On 23 July 1916, 1st Australian Division was involved in heavy fighting to capture the village of Pozieres, as part of the Somme Offensive. Jack was wounded in action and on 25 July was admitted to No 6 General Hospital, Rouen, with a gun shot wound to his right foot.
He was transferred to England aboard the hospital ship Asturius, from Le Havre and was admitted to Beaufort War Hospital at Fishponds, Bristol on 27 July. He stayed there until 20 December 1916 and then reported to No 1 Command Depot of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) at Perham Down, Warminster.
He then went on furlough and during this time, on 2 January 1917, he was admitted to Standish Hospital, an auxiliary hospital, situated above Stonehouse, in Gloucestershire. How and why Jack was admitted there is not known but this was possibly for a spell of convalescence or that he had returned to Beaufort Hospital and was transferred to Standish which was one of its satellites.
Whilst there, he contracted pneumonia (apparently following a chill – see below) and at 11.15am, on 9 January 1917, he died.
His funeral was at St Nicholas’ Church, Stonehouse, at 2.30pm on 12 January 1917. The service was conducted by Canon Nash, the Vicar, who was also Chaplain to Standish Hospital. It was attended by all the inmates of the hospital, Australian and British, who were fit to attend, plus Australians from other hospitals.
Jack was afforded a full military funeral with his coffin being conveyed on a gun carriage and his pall bearers were Australian patients from the hospital. As he was laid to rest in a grave in the churchyard, a firing party fired a volley of shots and the Last Post was sounded.
The staff and patients at Standish Hospital contributed to his headstone which stands today and it bears the inscription ‘The Staff and Patients of Standish Hospital have placed this stone in his memory.’
Although Kathleen claimed to have left Jack, once his marital status had been revealed and maintained that he left her penniless and homeless and to bring up a child (reportedly named Alan Daly Manners and born in 1912), they obviously kept in touch.
She wrote to him twice following his enlistment and in February, May and September 1916 wrote letters to the AIF Headquarters, enquiring as to news of his whereabouts.
She also sent him money and sought reimbursement for the sum which he had not cashed, following news of his death.
The destination of his personal effects also came into question and confusion arose when these could not be sent to his designated next-of-kin, his mother, as she had died some years before the war started.
Kathleen was able to produce a marriage certificate but in vain because the Australian Army authorities finally established that this marriage was invalid and that his real name was John Daniel Scales-Manners. As a result his effects were sent to Edith who was his first (and only legal) wife, along with his medals and memorial plaque.
Kathleen did receive back the funds she had sent to Jack. Interestingly, Jack’s headstone states that he came from Darwin, Northern Territories, yet there is nothing in his Army Service Record to support this.
However, there is evidence in an obituary published in the Northern Territory Times & Gazette of 29 March 1917 that he had worked in the Railway Loco Sheds in Darwin, prior to enlistment (see below) and also that John Manners Scales name is present on the Darwin Cenotaph.
Possibly this was another of his ‘escapes’ from domestic ties and relationships? On 25 September 1968 a street named ‘Scales Street’ was named after Jack by the local authority in Moil, a northern suburb of Darwin.
Evidently one of Scales’ medals was auctioned in Queensland in 2008. As his medals were sent to his first wife, Edith in the UK, presumably they were inherited by one of their children, most likely the youngest, Clement, who emigrated to Australia after the Second World War.
Footnotes:
The obituary published in the Northern Territory Times & Gazette of 29 March 1917: A private letter has been received by H.E. Carey, Esq., from a young lady in England giving details of the death at Standish Red Cross Hospital, near Bristol on January 9th of Pte. John Manners Scales who was formerly in the Government employ, in Darwin, and was among the first to volunteer for service at the front.
The story as told in this letter is a rather sad one. The writer mentions, among other things:
“Mr. Scales “talked” to me very much about a “friend” he was very, intimate with in Australia.” I only, know his Christian name (Jim). He was killed at the front, and Mr. Scales felt the loss of his friend very much, as he “had worked under him at a business.”
This allusion is interesting, because the “Jim” referred, to was presumably the late Jim Cain, who was killed on the Western Front about a year ago.
Pte. J. M, Scales was a member of the Second Div. of the A.I.F., and was 34 years of age.
After service in Egypt he was transferred to France and was wounded in the foot at the battle of the Somme. He made a good recovery, and was given leave at Christmas. But whilst away he caught a chill, double pneumonia supervened, he was readmitted to the Hospital, where he died a few days later. He was accorded a military funeral, of which the local paper published a long account under the heading “A Brave Anzac”.
The service was of an impressive character. The funeral procession was headed by a firing party of V.T.C. from Stroud. The coffin was enveloped in the Union Jack and bore the deceased’s cap with Australian soldiers acting as pall bearers.
The funeral procession comprised the nursing staff, wounded Anzac comrades, and a numerous attendance of the general public. A firing party fired the usual three volleys and a wounded soldier, accompanied by two boy scouts, sounded “The Last Post”.
The coffin bore a number of beautiful floral tributes inscribed: A token of gratitude to Australia for standing by the Empire; In memory of one of our brave Australians, from Mrs. E.D. Farran and Mr. E. Jenner Davies; from Sister Hunter and the Nurses in Ward 2, with deepest regret and sorrow;
From the Boys at Standish Red Cross Hospital; from Mrs. John W. Audrey, “Kings Hall; With deepest sympathy, from his sweetheart , Daisy; From Miss King (Commandant); In deepest sympathy, from two of the maids of Hawards End, A. Preston and J. Parnell.
The nurses and soldiers collected among themselves sufficient money to erect a stone over the grave. The deceased was buried in a beautiful little Churchyard at Standish, two miles from the
hospital.
In conclusion we quote the following from the private letter above referred to “He was a beautiful character, and was respected by many, which was proved by the large gathering of friends at
the church.”
Research by Graham Adams 12 March 2013 (updated)
Sources: Commonwealth War Graves Commission – Debt of Honour Register; National Archives of Australia; Ancestry and the Northern Territory Government, Department of Arts & Museums website www.territorystories.nt.gov.au